Hello,

I am looking at the artwork on page 166. Would this be a rendering of the East Gate of Moria?

I would say yes, but that's only an opinion!

Yup, you are correct. It's the Dimrill Gate, with a view up to the Dimrill Stair.

And are there two versions of Thranduil's gate, one by Jon Hodgson and the other by Jon Howe?

Only one is Thranduil's gate - the John Howe one. The other was painted as merely an outpost somewhere in... well, somewhere.

I adopted Jon's painting in the Words of the Wise adventure that got played at Gencon... but I don't know if any Loremaster actually showed the piece to the players.

Francesco

Francesco,

Nathaniel, who ran the demo I played in, showed us the picture, so your directions were followed at least once

John

Ahh nice

It appears as the one on p119 is one of Tranduil's gate? I am not certain who painted it. I don't see an artist's signature.

Yup that's Thranduil's Gate, by the inestimable John Howe.

Remarkable artworks throughout the TOR collection.
They inspire the imagination

Where might one find this other painting?

Page 56 of the Adventurer's book:

Ahh yes

Lovely work, Evocative.
I will use this artwork at my table when the time is right.

Mayhaps one day you might share the undisclosed outpost as mentioned
Or shall we leave it to the imagination?

Don't tell anyone, but I never really had a fixed idea of where it was. Northern Mirkwood somewhere. Thanks for the kind words!

You are welcome!

I am curious about the paintings on 54 and 55 of the LMB

These are very interesting...

Is the one on p54 a gate? And what of the one on p55?

Thanks for taking the time to fill us in on them

*shameless bump*

It is one painting.

It has got to be Dol Guldur.

Correct!

I didn't want to venture a guess, but I was wondering if it was Dol Guldur, since it had the look of a blighted nasty place.

When the preview showing that image hit the net I put that one up on my DeviantArt page (http://jonhodgson.deviantart.com/ if you're inclined to visit) and had a long running, at times mildly heated, but ultimately really interesting discussion with a chap who felt Dol Guldur should be a lone tower on a hill.

And his reasons were as good as mine/ours, but there is no clear answer to be had. We ended up getting down to Sindarin words for clues, once we'd compared notes on hundreds of years of ME history, at which point, like reasonable people, we agreed to disagree.

This for me is the absolute wonder of Tolkien's work - the depth, and the hunts you can go on for words and their antecedents in both his invented languages and those he borrowed or learned from. And all the while he doesn't use much direct description.

I think if I did this one again I would make more of the craggy naked hill that the fortress is built on, but at the time of commissioning it was to stretch only across the top third of a spread, so width was more of a pressure than height. This also accounts for the gatehouse being such a feature, so that we could have something on each page. The image of the White Council smashing the doors in is a good one, and even better is the aftermath of that.

As a deserted I think it's almost more frightening than when it was fully inhabited. Because there must be something still there, right? And how far do you get into it's corridors before you find out?

In my mind I see no problem with it as it is depicted.

It might be a simple thing to make it appear as if it were at some height by changing the background in some way if it was your desire to do so, like maybe clouds near the summit or distant forestry hills and whatnot but the structure itself speaks of an entrance to lower places and looks quite formidable.

As it stands it might be sitting in a valley up on the summit.

To me it is a beautiful rendering regardless.

That would look nice on a GM screen.

Ed G.